Monthly Archives: January 2009

Amazon UK is selling an official House of the Dead Overkill “Hand Cannon” for a tenner.

The peripheral to Sega’s Wii shooter is suitably oversized, and white, as you’d expect.

For £10 you should own it. We saw the game at Games Convention last year and it looked funny, in a “shoot zombies in the face” kind of way.

It’s out on February 13.

Dr Lawrence Gordon and Detective David Tapp will both appear as main characters in the upcoming SAW game, according to this Bloody Disgusting rumour.

Gordon was played by Cary Elwes and Detective Tapp by Danny Glover in the 2004 horror.

The game is supposedly releasing this year, and is being developed by Zombie.

SAW’s future is less than certain, however, as publisher Brash apparently bit the bullet in November.

No new publisher has been announced.

Mythic is the latest EA division to suffer a size reduction, Joystiq’s rumouring, with 21 customer service staff now looking for work.

The Warhammer Online developer is merely the latest in a long line of EA-owned outfits to be trimmed as a result of an announced 10 percent staff cut thanks to losses last year.

The publisher has refused to comment on this latest talk.

EA supposedly closed Black Box before the Christmas break, with both Blueprint and Spielberg’s LMNO team taking hits further back in the fourth quarter.

Pandemic’s Australian studio is rumoured to have closed, in addition.

EA has also shelved plans for a new Vancouver studio as part of general belt-tightening.

The stumbling giant is to lay off 1,000 employees as part of a cost-cutting exercise.

None of the above studio redundancies have been confirmed by EA, who has said on a number of occasions that it won’t go into specifics about where jobs are to be lost.

D3′s stuck up a decent Flash demo of the upcoming Puzzle Quest: Galactrix here, featuring a two-player puzzle-off against an NPC.

The futuristic sequel to the stupidly popular Puzzle Quest features a robotic woman saying things like, “Supernova,” as well as the opportunity to laser opponents. Because you’re in space, obviously.

The game itself releases for PC, DS, XBLA and PSN next month.

Kotaku sends word that Midway’s Vin Diesel-centric open worlder has hit a snag. Originally scheduled for February 20, it’s now dropping exactly one slightly truncated month later on March 20.

Fortunately, a pre-release demo has been squeezed out of Midway’s emaciated form, though when it’ll actually ooze onto Xbox Live and PSN is anyone’s guess.

For those who are interested, a few new screens are also lurking on the official Wheelman page. To be honest, though, we were way too distracted by the game’s totally rad website to spend much time with a few immobile, buzz-killing screens. Seriously, go check it out. It’ll make a man out of you.

By Nathan Grayson

Amazon is currently offering 13 month’s worth of Xbox Live Gold membership for a stupefying $30.

See here.

The price is a reduction from the normal $50, meaning you should probably get on it if you’ve been refusing to upgrade from Silver for the last few years.

Seriously. Sort it out. Do you want it to be free, or something?

CCP has refused to confirm or deny whether or not a supposed financial statement listing horror MMO World of Darkness as a 2010 release is genuine.

“We have nothing to add,” a US CCP rep told VG247 today.

The game, the second major MMO planned from the EVE Online publisher, was mentioned in this PDF, which gives a general financial overview of the Icelandic firm.

“CCP is currently working on new projects, the largest of which is World of Darkness, a MMOG that is scheduled to launch 2010,” it said.

Little is known of World of Darkness, currently in development at White Wolf in Atlanta.

CCP acquired White Wolf, owner of the World of Darkness IP, in 2006.

Blame all those Christmas Wiis. Wii Fit’s lording over the UK chart for the week ending January 17, with World at War refusing to budge in second place.

Nice showing there for Lord of the Rings: Conquest, settling in at what’s sure to be a brief stay at number three.

Full thing here. Last week’s chart here.

Sony Online Entertainment has acquired the PoxNora game and its developers from Octopi.

The new members will form SOE’s new Tucson studio, and will work with SOE Denver on future trading card and strategy game projects.

“Our strategy and trading card games have been successful beyond our wildest dreams,” said John Smedley, president of Sony Online Entertainment.

“Expanding with a great product like PoxNora and the outstanding development team from Octopi gives us a chance to extend our strategy game offerings and enhance the ones we already field.”

PoxNora is an online multiplayer trading card game and was released back in 2006.

“We could not be more excited about becoming part of the Sony Online Entertainment family,” said Dan Kopycienski, president of Octopi.

“We have always been passionate about developing unique and creative games for our customers, and now with the support of SOE, we will have the opportunity to take our products to that next level.”

By Mike Bowden

Oh dear. Australian site Gameplayer‘s Skate 2 review reckons the PS3 version has severe frame-rate issues and “runs like a dog.”

From the piece:

There are some serious frame-rate concerns with the PS3 version of the game. We tested both the Xbox 360 and PS3 review code, even taking our rider in each version to the same spot in the world and switching the input on the TV back-and-forth to ensure it wasn’t some weird pre- and post-coffee phenomenon. But by comparison, the PS3 version runs like a dog. It is not a game breaker, but we did find ourselves missing landings and grinds simply on a part of the frame-rate screwing up our timing and no matter which way you look at it, that ain’t cool.

Skate 2 is released for Xbox 360 and PS3 on January 23.

By Mike Bowden

Sony has announced thatgamecompany’s Flower is to be released on US PSN on February 12 – Europe should be getting it a week later.

“Flower is a tough game to describe. We like to think of it as a video game version of a poem; an exploration into the tension between urban bustle and natural serenity. Players accumulate flower petals as the onscreen world swings between the pastoral and the chaotic,” said thatgamecompany boss, Kellee Santiago to PSBlog.

To celebrate, there’s a brand new trailer for you to look at after the break.

By Mike Bowden

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Bungie’s Halo 3: ODST soundtrack is to be played at the Paramount Theatre on January 24 as part of Video Games Live in Seattle.

Marty O’Donnell will be there himself as well as Bungie composer Michael Salvatori.

“I’ve always debuted my music with Video Games Live and it’s an honor to be involved with such a highly successful production. It’s a fantastic show and a great and unique way to connect our music with an audience,” said Marty.

We’d give our right arm for this. Quite literally.

However, if you are lucky enough to be in the vicinity, you can buy yourself a ticket, here.

For a taster of the soundtrack, watch or re-watch the ODST teaser trailer after the break (music kicks in at approx 1:30).

Halo 3: ODST is out later this year.

By Mike Bowden

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Jérôme Vashist-Rota, founder and VP creative, brand and community of DivX, has said the the company is having a “hard time” with Microsoft over its use of third party DivX support in Xbox 360.

“When it comes to DivX branding, we have had a hard time with Microsoft. Obviously we would love for some sort of partnership to happen,” said Vashist-Rota to TechRadar.

“Currently, Microsoft does support DivX, which is fantastic, but the company has brought in some third-party support for the Xbox 360, and we are not very happy with that.”

“It’s all about branding,” Rota concludes. “And branding can work both ways, so it is not just us losing out with the Xbox 360′s lack of official certification.”

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden

Uncharted: Among Thieves game director Bruce Straley has told CVG that he reckons the Uncharted franchise is already as popular as Tomb Raider, and perhaps even more so.

“Why, do you think he’s not already there, if not beyond that point already, in terms of popularity?” said Straley.

“I feel that Nathan Drake can stand on his own in any line up of the video game pantheon.”

We’re just checking with the Eidos team to see what they have to say on the matter.

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden

Square Enix has opened the official site for the DS remake of SaGa 2 Hihou Densetsu, better known as Final Fantasy Legends 2 in the West.

There details as to the game’s specifications and more importantly this link to a SaGa 2 20th Anniversary page showing what looks like some remake footage and a video detailing the RPG’s history.

The latest issue of Japan’s Shounen Jump Magazine reported the remake was in the works last week.

We’ll contact Square Enix and see if this will land on our shores at any point.

Beautiful Game Studios’ Roy Meredith has said he wouldn’t want to pay money for SI Games’ online footy sim, Football Manager Live.

“I have played Football Manager Live and I don’t really get why I’d spend money on it because it’s too deep for me to want,” said Meredith to Videogamer.

“I like Football Manager, I like playing it by myself. Football Manager Live is just a bit too time consuming for me, and I understand there will be a market for it but not me personally.”

Championship Manager 09 is out in April.

More through the link.

By Mike Bowden

Sony has revealed the official box art for Guerilla Game’s mega-shooter, Killzone 2.

We’re going Killzone 2 crazy at the moment and this packshot just feeds our addiction.

Check it out after the break.

By Mike Bowden

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Alan Pritchard (MD of Sega Europe North ) and John Clark (UK sales director) have told MCV that they feel titles such as the 18 rated MadWorld and more adult themed games such as The Conduit can only server to broaden the Wii demographic.

“There have been some good hardcore Wii titles. Resident Evil 4 has done reasonable numbers; Red Steel has also performed really well. But since then, many publishers have migrated towards the more mass-market family titles, so perhaps there hasn’t been the array or depth of hardcore titles on Wii,” said Pritchard. “So there is definitely opportunity here.”

“More family friendly titles are being released on PlayStation and 360 as this is a growth area for these formats. Maybe with Wii there’s a reverse opportunity,” said Clarke.

“We’d like to maintain the success we’ve had on Nintendo formats. One way of achieving that is with new IP like The Conduit and MadWorld, and traditional Sega titles will continue to drive broader market success.”

MadWorld was recently given an 18-rating in the UK.

Full interview through the link.

By Mike Bowden

As you can see below, Sqaure Enix set to release a 160GB PS3 with a Cloud wolf logo on it and copy of Advent Children Complete ¥49,980 (€420) along with the FFXIII demo on April 16 in Japan.

This is the third special edition PS3 to be announced for Japan in three weeks.

Last week a Resident Evil 5 bundle was announced and before that was the white Yakuza 3 edition.

Expect none of these to reach Europe any time soon.

By Mike Bowden

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Sega has released a new Yakuza 3 trailer showing all the main characters in the game, a huge Gatling gun and some funky Japanese pop music.

In case you missed them, some rather lovely high res screenshots were released last week.

It’s looking like it’s coming together nicely.

After the break. Thanks, Xephon1970.

By Mike Bowden

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